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Yahoo Board Director Patti Hart Stepping Down Over Thompson Scandal

Posted by Unknown on from the sealed-fate dept.

concertina226 writes "Yahoo has announced that board member Patti Hart, who led the committee that hired CEO Scott Thompson, will be stepping down. Hart has been under fire for overseeing the hiring of Thompson, whose resume wasn't fully vetted. I know some of you on Slashdot think that Scott Thompson didn't do anything wrong by claiming he had a computer science degree on his CV when he doesn't, but don't you think it's kind of weird that the guy who lied gets to keep his job as CEO, yet this director is being made a scapegoat? It just sends out the message that it's cool to pretend to have qualifications that you don't have."

9 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Seems typical, actually. by Grygus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Surely you do not expect that a CEO will be held to account?

    1. Re:Seems typical, actually. by rudy_wayne · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Long story short, she kinda had it coming for failing to do due diligence.

      Nobody likes lying, and it's pretty hard to defend someone who gets caught telling a lie, but, do you really believe that Yahoo hired Scott Thompson because they thought he had a CS degree, from 1979, from some tiny college that nobody has heard of? And the only reason that any of this has come up in the first place is because of a guy who wants a seat on the Yahoo board of directors, but can't get it, so he decides to dig up whatever dirt he can for the sole purpose of embarrassing Yahoo.

      Of course, if the Yahoo board had done their homework, they would have caught this and saved themself some embarrassment.

    2. Re:Seems typical, actually. by hondo77 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ...so he decides to dig up whatever dirt he can...

      Did you really call the truth "dirt"? Really?

      --
      I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
    3. Re:Seems typical, actually. by AtomicJake · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Long story short, she kinda had it coming for failing to do due diligence.

      Nobody likes lying, and it's pretty hard to defend someone who gets caught telling a lie, but, do you really believe that Yahoo hired Scott Thompson because they thought he had a CS degree, from 1979, from some tiny college that nobody has heard of?

      No, but do you want a CEO (who is also responsible for all employees) who lied in his CV and got caught? Isn't this lie "unethical" behavior and cannot be tolerated in a public company?

    4. Re:Seems typical, actually. by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Once again, slowly, because some people seem to be slow picking up the point.

      The problem is not that he does not have a CS degree. The problem is that he wilfully and knowingly lied to the board and to the company. You may have no problem with a CEO you cannot trust. If I was on that board, I most certainly would.

    5. Re:Seems typical, actually. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He lied on his resume. He didn't exagerate or fudge a little, he flat out lied. The fact that so many here are okay with that is astounding. If he'll lie on his resume he'll lie on the balance sheet and to stock holders and anybody else he needs to lie to to get ahead.

    6. Re:Seems typical, actually. by n7ytd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nobody likes lying, and it's pretty hard to defend someone who gets caught telling a lie, but, do you really believe that Yahoo hired Scott Thompson because they thought he had a CS degree, from 1979, from some tiny college that nobody has heard of?

      No, they probably didn't hire him for his CS degree, so why did he feel it necessary to fabricate one? The issue is not if he has a CS degree or not; being a CEO doesn't require knowledge of spanning trees. He probably is a very capable manager-- after all he got this far, right?

      No one comes up smelling like a rose here: the CEO looks like a doofus for fabricating such an easily-debunked lie (or allowing a mistake to propagate, if we want to be generous). The board at large looks like a bunch of doofuses for not bothering to have a secretary make a 5-minute phone call to every institution in his CV. The guy who wants a seat on the board looks like a whiny nit-picker who is just looking for an angle to get leverage for his own agenda.

      The real issue, in my mind, is that if a Chief Officer of a billion dollar company can't be bothered to be ethical about such a stupid, tiddly detail, how can he be trusted to be honest about more weighty matters? Getting this detail wrong in filings to the SEC is at best a lack of fact-checking and at worst flat-out perjury. Who's to say the same guy would not cook the balance sheets or lie to investors?

      If all we can go on is his track record (since his qualifications don't seem to matter), this is a piss-poor first entry in his yet-to-be written record as CEO.

  2. Give it time. by alexander_686 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not that their firing a scapegoat, it is that it takes longer to fire the CEO.

    And I don’t care if he has a Accounting or CS degree. What matters is his leadership abilities, which means setting the tone for values and ethics, which it looks like he is failing at.

  3. Re:or perhaps... by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Because his "ends" are likely the enrichment of himself alone, and his "means" may involve knifing me in the back.